Nutella Mousse

Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake with Whiskey Caramel Sauce

Moist, dense, and foolproof, this cake includes a mix of cocoa and chocolate chips for fudgy flavor. You can vary the intensity by adjusting the amount of chocolate chips, but don’t pass up the silky caramel sauce.

Mississippi Mud Pie

For her version of the layered pie, blogger Naomi Robinson grinds up Oreos for the crust and adds a dark chocolate pudding filling. The recipe comes from her September, 2017 book, Baker’s Royale: 75 Twists on All Your Favorite Sweets (Running Press; $28).

Moose Tracks Brownie Ice Cream Sandwiches

Brownies are perfection when combined with peanut-butter-cup/chocolate-swirl ice cream (often called Moose Tracks), but feel free to swap it out for your favorite flavor. Chilling the brownies overnight will make it easier to cut them neatly; they’ll also keep their shape nicely if you cut them in half.

Single-Girl Melty Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

L.A.-based blogger Joy Wilson says, “I’m a single girl. That means I don’t have to feed anyone but myself...I can have chocolate...for dinner.” This version of a standout recipe in her Joy the Baker Cookbook ($20) adds peanut butter or bourbon, two of Joy’s favorite flavors.

Chocolate Thumbprints with Caramel and Sea Salt

The starting point for this cookie was a recipe that reader Colette Tihista-Longin of Great Falls, Montana, found in a recipe collection at a yard sale. “I adapted it to include caramel and sea salt. It’s a hit every year at our cookie exchange.” Despite the cookie’s name, a wooden spoon makes a neater depression than your thumb will.

Chocolate and Sea Salt Fig Lollipops

Blood Orange and Bittersweet Chocolate Sorbet

The marvelous merger of orange and chocolate gets even better when you pair blood oranges’ raspberry nuances with dark chocolate and a little Campari for complexity. The herbal, slightly bitter liqueur also helps keep the sorbet from getting icy.

Chocolate Lace Sandwich Cookies

"I call these the ‘backache’ cookies because I always make a double batch, sitting hunched over at the table,” says Fran Pepoon of Roseville, California. She has been baking these chocolate cookies, which have a subtle hit of orange and vanilla, every Christmas for 30 years, adapting them over time from a recipe given to her by a friend. Two tips: The cookies tend to stick and spread, so be sure to use a nonstick baking-sheet liner or parchment, and don’t bake more than 12 cookies on each sheet.

Oaxacan Chocolate Milk Shakes

The ingredients sound bodacious—in addition to bittersweet chocolate, there are two kinds of chile, cinnamon, and tequila—yet these little milkshakes taste refined and smooth. They are dangerously easy to drink.